RF47 Recovery part 2

After importing the damaged Fournier, Bob’s real work begins. Restoring this one-off prototype to flying condition will be no walk in the park...

- Bob Grimstead

I was the owner of the sole but badly damaged aerobatic prototype Fournier RF47 and had Tim Wakeman of Recovair bring it back from Belgium’s Grimbergen airfield. On the long drive home, I pondered the enormity of the job I had undertaken to get this poor, broken little aeroplane flying again.

The engine was a Volkswagen. I knew about those, had performed major surgery on several, and reckoned rebuilding one was within my capabilities. The battered and holed airframe and tail components, however, were other matters entirely. Still, I reflected on LAA Chief Engineer Francis Donaldson’s words “The wing is undamaged, that’s the most important and complex part. The rest can be repaired, even if it means building a new fuselage”.

Despite his positivity, I still didn’t sleep too well that night.

The next morning I made room along the side of my hangar for this wing, positioning its purpose-built trestle in readiness. Unfortunately, although Tim’s truck’s crane’s arm was long enough to drop the wing into position, my hangar’s eaves were too low for it to reach in all the way. Generously, fellow LAA member Patrick Elliot helped us carry it the last five metres into place. Strapping it down by the tie-down rings, I zipped back home to meet Recovair’s second delivery.

Our drive is narrow and kinked, so Tim trans-shipped the fuselage, spare canopy, tail components and crate of bits into a van and a trailer. Despite having no crane he, his mate and my friend Alan carried the comparatively light fuselage into our garage. After the Recovair's guys left we took some silly in cockpit photographs.

Surveying this scene the following morning, it was hard to know where to start. I had reassembled other Fourniers, but all this repair work seemed very daunting. Still, as the Chinese say, ‘the longest journey begins with but a single step’.